In the Middle Ages and Renaissance, too, homes of healing were often beautiful, such as the Hospices de Beaune, one of the most handsome buildings in the city of Beaune, France, which was built as a hospital for the indigent. In the nineteenth century, tuberculosis sanatoriums prioritized clean, dry air at high altitudes and lots of sunlight. Many nineteenth-century clinics and hospitals included a large solarium (from the Latin sol, “sun”), in which patients could sit and absorb sunlight as they healed.
